I just did two replications to confirm details. It has been going on since the March Beta expansion, when I started playing. I didn't realize it was a bug until it was mentioned in that thread.

Steps to Replicate: Create a New Character, then Log In with it.
Urgency: unknown
Severity: minor annoyance

When creating a new character, the very first time you log in you appear in SDR. The ground terrain and textures load, but structures, characters, and NPCs do not. The map locations were (lt 88860, lg 45024, alt 33) and (88802, 45047, 33) on my two replications. I was able to see combat spam (powers, buffs, etc) from players who were near the Starkholm tree, while I was in the SDR spawn. I was able to target players from the Starkhokm tree, while I was in the SDR spawn location. The new character remains untagged at this point. When attempting to move, the "translocating" screen is shown and the new character appears in Starkholm, in the normal area around the tree, with the normal map coordinates, and now with Starkholm tags.